


always at your side

by hecleretical



Category: Pyre (Video Game)
Genre: All hurt no comfort, Existence outside of linear time, M/M, Redeemed Villain Travels to Before Their Redemption, Second person POV, Stream of Consciousness, Surreal, Time Travel Via Dreams/Visions, being kind of dehumanizing towards heralds in a sadly in-character way, extreme self loathing, god i hope you like this because it felt so self-indulgent to write, seriously when i said all hurt no comfort i mean it, some light/mentioned injury/body horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-02
Updated: 2021-01-02
Packaged: 2021-03-12 14:09:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28511688
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hecleretical/pseuds/hecleretical
Summary: (This is a vision. It is real. It is present. It is past. It is already making your head hurt.)soliam murr goes back.
Relationships: Celeste | The Gate Guardian & Tariq | The Lone Minstrel & Soliam Murr, Gol Golathanian/Soliam Murr
Comments: 1
Kudos: 3
Collections: Past Imperfect Future Unknown 2020





	always at your side

**Author's Note:**

  * For [laughingpineapple](https://archiveofourown.org/users/laughingpineapple/gifts).



It starts with pain. It starts with trouble; it starts with an ineffable feeling of regret, the same that has always plagued you/will always plague you/begins to plague you now. It starts with you overcome. It starts with you not knowing what to do.

It starts with you about to die.

It _begins_ by a river.

It begins by a river, on the banks of a river, the river Sclorian, the river that holds/will hold/has always held the Hundred-Minds' name. (Who is Sclorian? How do you know this?) It starts with you face down in the mud, your body caught on rocks that tore and broke it, having dragged your way out of the river and onto the shore. You are too weak even to cry. Your head hurts. Your body is wracked with pain like nothing you've ever known. Your mouth is full of mud. (Is this what being tortured is like? You've sent people to torture before.) You have been broken. You feel as if you have been here a minute. You feel as if you have been here for thousands of years.

You feel as if you have been here for thousands of years.

You feel as if you have been here for thousands of years.

It begins on a mountain.

It begins on a mountain, at the peak of Mount Alodiel, the corpse of Sung-Gries long cold beneath your feet. It starts with the Heralds standing before you, as meek and subservient as ever, and you know they know they cannot refuse you anything you ask, whatever you ask. It starts with hooves and horns and your body weighed down by heaviness and pain. Your hands have grown long and clawed. Your teeth are sharper.

It starts with you face down in the mud by the river Sclorian. You cannot see or hear. Only visions, things that were-- Golathanian and the contempt in his eyes, Khaylmer and his inscrutable smile, the screams screams screams screams screams screams screams screams screams as the barges plunge over the falls at the edge of the world. You wonder if anyone else is alive. You hope if they are they'll let you die.

Take me back, you tell the Heralds.

The moon-herald bows its head and looks at you with golden eyes very like your own. To whence, Sir, it asks you.

To the beginning. To before.

To the mud, sir? To the pain?

To before that. To my Empire.

The sun-herald speaks. For how long, Sir, will you see it?

For as long as I can.

You cannot explain why you ask this. To change it, part of you says, knowing it cannot be changed. To savor it, says the part that knows it cannot be savored. That no matter how simple that time may have been, how long before, it was stained with the blood of thousands and thousands and thousands beneath your feet. To erase the screaming from your mind. To punish yourself with more screaming. Because it has been there from the beginning, because you have been unmoored, unstuck, because you see it every night when you dream and you swear every day you live it with your own heart and soul. Since you have been face down on the banks of the Sclorian. So the visions will not trouble you. So you will have just one more day.

And will it please you, Sir? asks the moon-herald. Will it make you happy?

I am the Eighth among Eight Scribes, you say, and you will obey me in this as you obey me in all things. The Heralds bow their heads.

They bid you step into the waters of Sung-Gries, into the Shimmer-Pool, where you know it is profane to step; then again, if any creature is holy as well as profane is it not you, the Horned King, who has been the lowest worm and the highest lord in your own time? You pollute the earth with your presence, in the same way that you make it whole. The water is cold, and so clear you can see to its bottom. They ask you wade in up to your chest.

And they begin to play: lute and mandolin, a song you have never heard before, a song that sends chills into your heart even through the cold water. And they begin to sing: a song that speaks of Harn's dreams, of Sung-Gries's might, of a name that cannot be named.

Gol Golathanian's eyes are very dark.

You are looking into them as he kneels before you; he is twenty-six now, you remember, and he is here so that you may decide if he is fit to be Master-General. He has not lost his left eye yet. It is just as clear and dark as the right.

You have arranged yourself above him, on a slight dais, beneath the light of a stained glass window that colors your face and hands with light-- deliberately, deliberately you did this; you wanted to look beautiful, godly, impressive. There's a wide-eyed flush to his face, so it's working. It usually works/worked on men, because/when you are/were beautiful.

(This is a vision. It is real. It is present. It is past. It is already making your head hurt.)

You are speechless at the beauty of him. Khaylmer, at your shoulder, speaks instead.

Because oh, he _is_ beautiful. The light touches his hands and face as much as yours, stains them ginger and sea-green and gold. He is whole and healthy and happy and you have not ruined him yet, have not made him love you (this is a lie, he has already loved you, has watched you silently from across a room, but he has not _known_ you). There is a want there, want the same as the first time you were here, that keeps him just a moment too long on his knees, but it is want and love and sorrow, sorrow at the way he is and was. The way he will not be, tired and battered and scarred in the land below. His conscience scarred, too. The Gol Golathanian before you is twenty-six and in the prime of his health and has never done a thing for which he need be ashamed.

(This is not true. You have made him do so many things without even knowing his name.)

Your voice is so bored, so detached. Honey-rich ooze with a suggestive edge that should not be there, and so utterly flippant and uncaring. You cannot stand the words coming out of your mouth. You cannot stop the words coming out of your mouth.

You are plunging over the falls.

You are ten years old and your father has died and they are telling you this, telling you that you are Emperor now, are kneeling to you. When they kneel it puts them at eye level, not even below you. You feel/remember feeling nothing. Your father was Lord and Master of Sahr; your mother died or left or was disgraced shortly after you were born. You don't even remember. Your first memory of him is at court, bathed in light on a throne at the end of a long hall, and you have seen him in private maybe once a season for the past six years. You don't even think you're going to cry, later. When they crown you, when they put the scepter in your hand (a hollow imitation of the one Triesta wields) (who is Triesta?) you are going to look out at the sea of bowed heads and kneeling people and feel nothing.

You are seven and you are reading a book. It is about Casius and Sagithol, and you are wishing for a Casius of your own, someone to look you in the eye and make you smile. Someone to always be by your side.

You are plummeting screaming over the falls.

Gol Golathanian's eyes are very dark.

They are very dark and they are looking at you across the banquet hall over the heavy-laden tables. He has lost your favor and so you have sent him to sit with-- no. He has _chosen_ to sit with his officers. Not at your high table, by your side.

And his eyes are very dark and, in the moment before he glances away, face flushed with wine, you can see one thing in them and it is contempt.

Khaylmer leans in to whisper something poisonous in your ear, something that seems so reasonable.

You are awaking in bed after some or another revelry-- not your Great Revelry because even with the Heralds' powers you cannot return to something you cannot remember and you cannot remember anything for a solid week after that night. Your body is sore and your head is sore and everything all over feels wrong. You are thirty-one, not quite as young as you used to be. (This is not true and a lie, you will live and be young forever and ever.)

Vaguely, you remember someone carrying you to bed, as they have done before. Strong arms, a soothing presence. They had left you, though. You'd said something to them that was so silly it should not have hurt them-- about love. You don't quite remember.

You are sitting on your throne passing judgement and you are so bored.

You are a star, and this time you think the Heralds have made a mistake, you are a star and they must have sent you forward, or else very, very far back. You are bright and majestic and far to the north. Over a great mountain whose face you should recognize.

But you shine only sometimes, you shine for the truly deserving. The thought makes you feel warm and comfortable as you fade and flicker into nothingness.

Gol Golathanian's eyes are very dark.

This you do not think is a dream.

He has returned from the front lines in triumph, as he usually does. Always, as he always does. He kneels before you now, not on your throne where you had commended him before the court, given him some medal or talisman, declared a feast and a day of rejoicing in his honor.

That is what you think really happened. You are alone together now. Suddenly you remember that you had asked-- that of him, before he left, and feel embarrassed. He's not meeting your eyes either.

You fumble through an apology, somehow more sincerely than you would or had in the real world. You never intended to impose on him or make him uncomfortable. He is-- you are-- you value his service, and more than that, his presence beside you at court.

His voice is quiet and a little tense. Wary. You are of course his Liege and have nothing to apologize for.

You know he doesn't enjoy banquets, though of course he will have one, as you had promised.

You are very perceptive, he says with a wry and somewhat unexpecting quirk of lips. (This is not something anyone has accused you of before, especially not him.)

Will he dine with you? Tonight, in private?

He finally looks up and meets your eyes at this, startled. My Liege?

It is an honor beyond honors, though of course you don't say this. He already knows. He will not enjoy his grand feast and so you would reward him in a more-- don't say personal, please don't say personal-- suitable way.

He will of course be honored to dine with you if you wish.

He has been gone so long that it will be good to speak with him. You've missed him.

Gol dips his head at that, and his voice when he replies is almost uncertain. He's pleased, but surprised-- he's just another one of your loyal servants, of course.

But he is so much more.

You are in a barge that is going to go over the falls at the edge of the world, a barge on the river, and you are watching the faces of your people as you sail by. They are gaunt, hungry. Everyone at the Palace had been well-fed, even the servants. It occurs to you for the first time that some people aren't.

That not all of your Empire is beautiful and clean. (You had observed this initially with disgust; now, with disquiet.)

That you are their Emperor.

That it is your--

You are plunging over the edge of the world.

Gol Golathanian's eyes are very dark. They meet yours for a moment as a servant refills your cup, retreats to somewhere discretely out of sight. He had covered his own goblet with his hand-- it seems he's finished drinking for the night. You should really follow his lead after this next cup. You don't want to spoil the moment by being too drunk.

(This is how you KNOW it is not a real memory.)

You have been talking to him about any number of things, drawing him out inch by inch, out of the impenetrable emotional tortoise shell where Jomuer mocks him for hiding. (Who is Jomuer?) At first his answers were all polite and you despaired. You had gone so far to lose his trust.

But after a little wine, a few soft glances, a slow lingering touch-- your hands brushed as you took a slice of candied fruit from a dish and they did not pull away-- he has begun to open up. He tells you of his family, his home. A green muddy village of rice farmers, and himself the youngest of five children of peasants. He'd lied about his age to join the army. He'd had a pet squirrel in the barracks. On the northern border, he'd been an interpreter, learned to speak a little Harp.

They are things he tells you/has told you/will tell you in the Downside, things you've never heard before but already know, things that in a real memory he would never say to his liege. They make your heart soft. This must be a vision of some other world, of what could have been, if you had not-- if you _were_ not--

The Heralds must be either very kind or very cruel.

(After they pull you from the water, you realize that you have been sobbing. You've had visions before, but none this cruel, never so many in a row.)

You recite poetry for him, about the moon which you can see from the open doors to your private garden. You tell him he is brave, he is clever, you are honored to have his devotion, the loyalty of a man like him, and he stammers and blushes and looks away. On impulse you take him by the hand.

It will be more beautiful outside, where we can see it better, you say. The moon. (Gol, in the moonlight.)

It is spring (he has been campaigning all winter, the things you do to this poor man) and your private gardens are very beautiful, felted with soft pale green buds and leaflets, abloom in magenta and white. The full moon makes it all surreal. You don't ever want this moment to end. If you had been wiser, it wouldn't have. You would be Emperor now.

And his face in the moon-herald's light is soft and innocent and alive with wonder, and you want something very badly that you have never named.

You are seven and reading about Casius, your favorite. The faithful jester who searched a year and a day for eir Prince; you want something like that, someone to always be at your side.

Someone to always be at your side.

Always be at your side.

At--

And you are face down in the mud on the banks of the River Sclorian and you think one of your broken ribs has punctured your lung and it is all so painful and so clear.

Golathanian.

Dark-eyed handsome brave clever earnest Gol Golathanian, who will save you, who has saved you, who could have saved you if you would have let him. Who could have loved you if you would have let him. Whom you could have loved, if you could have loved anyone but yourself.

Who despises you.

Who may not despise you always, may even come to love you, but who will always be as broken and battered and hurt as you, because of you, who will never see his family or his legions again, who is trapped here with you, chained to you, never to return.

And the revelation was painful the first time. And the memory was painful the second time and every time since. And the vision, with context, with everything you've seen, with knowledge that he will come to love you again anyway and that nothing behind you can be changed--

And you lead him to a plum tree in full bloom at the center of your garden, where you stop. The light and the branches cast long thin shadow across your faces.

Thank you, he says softly, and you notice he forgets to call you liege.

For what?

I-- For tonight. For apologizing. For-- I don't know.

Well, you say, I'm glad.

I never imagined-- this. That I would ever meet you, let alone speak to you. Let alone....He gestures with a hand at the gardens around you.

It's what you deserve, you tell him. It is too dark to tell if his face is flushed.

But he doesn't look away. And he still doesn't call you his liege.

Master Golathanian--

No. That's not what you say. There's really only one thing to say.

Gol.

His eyes widen slightly in surprise. They are so very dark.

Gol Golathanian, you say, may I kiss you?

...You may.

And you take his face in your soft clawless hands and kiss him.

And he is kneeling before you bathed in stained-glass light and he has answered all your questions beautifully, dutifully, loyal and without reproach, and you can't hear your own words, just a voice in your ears. Khaylmer says something, asks some snide and probing question that would send anyone else into a self-implicating fluster-- and Gol says something _funny_ , something witty and plain spoken and just barely, back-handedly impolite. And you love him, and you want to scream. Gol, you want to say. Gol, I'm here. I'm from the future. Can you forgive me? Gol, can any of this be changed?

But you don't. You throw back your head and laugh.

"Khaylmer," you say, "I like him."

And you are plunging head-first over the falls.

\--

You are curled up in a ball beside the shores of the Shimmer-Pool and your face is wet. The moon-herald crouches beside you, apologetic. The sun-herald stands over you, impassive, as though this could have been expected and was your fault.

And did it please you, Sir? The moon-herald asks softly. Its eyes are really so much like yours. Did it make you happy?

They both help you stand. You lean your head against its shoulder for a moment, uncharacteristically. You don't like to show your creations weakness.

Your body is heavy and horned and full of pain.

No, you whisper. It didn't.

\--

(You never have another vision again, after that.)

(You wish you would.)


End file.
